Love thy neighbour? These days, many Aussies don’t even know their name. New research reveals that more than three-quarters of Australians think we’re less interested in knowing our neighbours compared to 20 years ago. But, it’s not all bad blood – according to a new research, which found that most Aussies still rate their street mates as "helpful and likeable, with one Sydney spot crowned the friendliest of them all.
To find Australia’s happiest neighbourhoods, Real Insurance went straight to the source – surveying more than 5,000 Australians. They published the findings in the Real Neighbours Report 2025, which scored areas on friendliness, likability, helpfulness, community spirit and noise levels to reveal the country’s friendliest ‘hoods.
More than three-quarters (75.7 per cent) of residents in the Sutherland area rated their neighbours as ‘excellent’ – the highest percentage in Australia. Cairns and South Australia’s south-east tied as the second-friendliest neighbourhoods (74.7 per cent), with Moreton Bay South (74.7 per cent) and Victoria’s Warrnambool (74.6 per cent) rounding out the top five.
While roughly two-thirds of Australians find their neighbours helpful and likeable, and 80 per cent find good neighbourly relationships important for safety and emergencies, it’s not all sunshine and backyard barbies. A major 62 per cent of Aussies admitted they’d lived next to someone for more than six months without even meeting them. Only one-third proactively introduced themselves, with NSW and ACT residents leading the way at 37 per cent.
Around one in three households reported having at least one disagreement with a neighbour in the past year, most commonly due to noise, rudeness or parking disputes. On top of that, a quarter of Aussies received passive-aggressive messages from their block buddies, with another 37 per cent feeling their privacy was invaded – from spying, entering property without permission, eavesdropping or gossiping.
You can check out the full report here. And after having a read, how about we all go bake a cake tonight and finally introduce ourselves to the folks next door?